A Sharp and Endless Need opens with the dance of basketball. The prose has a cadence that gives it an almost musical quality and the story that follows - the give and take between two young athletes - perfectly choreographs the dance within it.

Mack’s senior year is approaching and her dreams of DI athlete “stardom” quickly turn from passion to necessity after a family secret comes to light and she looks for an out to her small town life. Pressure is rising and the introduction of a new face on the team, Liv, brings about an undeniably fierce chemistry between the two girls both on and off the court.

Idling in parking lots indulging on whatever delicacies your pocket change affords you, how the sticky heat of a summer night can peel open your vulnerability like a fruit, AIM!!! — Crane captures the teen years with all of its bitter nostalgia and dramatics, made all the more intense by the grittiness of queer coming-of-age and the uniquely American fanaticism of high school athletics.

Thank you to Netgalley and The Dial Press for an eARC of this title!

I can only hope that no one picks up this novel thinking it is an erotic lesbian porn tale. It certainly can be read that way but is is actually a basketball themed love story. Marisa Crane is writing from both experiences, but their intention is to take you inside the mind and body of a 17-year-old falling in love for the first time. It is a love story about basketball and first deep love.

Basketball is a mystery to me, never having played it, watched it, or followed it. I kept needing to ask, "What does a point guard do?" and "What is a screen?" I also had difficulty identifying various alcoholic drinks with strange names and those of street drugs and their effects. And I wondered whether athletes like Mack could function at such high levels of the game while drinking and taking E and smoking pot.

So I'd advise you to stop asking dumb questions which really don't dilute the reality of adolescent grief, discovery of sexuality and first love and just read this book..

Thanks to Net Galley and Dial Press for letting me read and review this ARC.

Thank you netgalley for the e arc! I’ve been anticipating this one so I was so happy to be able to read this, and I was not disappointed! A Sharp Endless Need is a very real and raw portrayal of high school girls and queerness in the mid 2000s. There was definitely a lot of basketball content, and I’m not usually a fan of sports books, but the way the basketball scenes were written did not hinder my reading experience at all. I loved this book very much!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

A queer basketball romance written like lit-fic? Okay, sign me up. Like some other reviewers, I really liked this book when I started it, but got lost a little towards the end (which I did NOT see coming, by the way!) There's a lot of different emotions portrayed through these characters (grief, love, pain, sadness, guilt, etc.) and even though I haven't had the same lived experience as Mac or Liv, I can relate to the feelings they had, especially when it comes to the complicated emotions surrounding loss. You don't have to know basketball to be into this book - Marisa Crane does a great job of explaining the game in a way that's easy to follow.

I underestimated how much this would be about basketball. It was so boring and I just bought into it at all.

easy to read young adult literary fiction
queer
sports
mental health
grief


surprised to see the author posting across social media about readers mischaracterizing and unfairly reviewing the book

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy of this book. I eagerly anticipated Marisa Crane's new novel, A SHARP ENDLESS NEED, after thoroughly enjoying their debut I KEEP MY EXOSKELETONS TO MYSELF. This propulsive novel lives in the heat and sweat and shoe-squeaks of the basketball court and the liminal spaces where teen romances evolve. I loved how gay and fervent and aching it was, how Crane balances the concerns of teens exploring their sexual orientation with the overwhelming joy that exploration engenders. Though I know very little about basketball, I would not characterize this as a "basketball novel"—more as a novel full of characters whose hearts and minds are most focused and exuberant on the court. Loved it. Definitely recommend it. Can't wait for Crane's next book!

Girlhood is truly a hellscape for most and even more for those who feel like they are on the outside of the margins.

Thank you for Netgalley and the publisher for arc in exchange for a honest review. This book was a bittersweet exploration of an extremely homoerotic friendship revolving around basketball. i really liked the imperfect perfection of the main characters. i think people who enjoyed sunburn or the song naked in manhattan by chapell roan will loveeeeee this. i highly recommend to just about anyone and can’t wait for this to come out!!

I really, really enjoyed this. It had everything I love, queer yearning, screwed up dynamics, and women's basketball--written by someone who clearly understood all of these things. Highly recommended.

Marisa Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need is a raw and emotional coming-of-age novel about Mack, a high school basketball star navigating grief, love, and self-discovery. Her connection with new teammate Liv is electrifying, both on and off the court. Crane’s writing captures the messy intensity of first love and adolescence, but the heavy focus on basketball and excessive drug use sometimes felt distracting. While it didn’t fully resonate with me, it’s a powerful, emotional read for young queer women and femmes, offering a lot of heart and complexity.

Marisa Crane has a way of writing that feels like a gut punch—in the best way possible. A Sharp Endless Need is raw, intimate, and beautifully unsettling, pulling you into a world of longing, grief, and the relentless pursuit of connection.

The novel explores the complexities of love and loss in a way that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. Crane’s prose is sharp yet poetic, balancing emotional intensity with moments of quiet reflection. There were passages that made me pause just to take in the weight of the words.

That being said, the book leans heavily into its lyrical style, which at times made the pacing feel slower than I would have liked. It was beautiful, but there were moments when I wanted to be more immersed in the characters rather than the language itself. Still, the emotional depth and the way this author captures the nuances of human relationships more than made up for it.

If you love introspective, beautifully written literary fiction that isn’t afraid to sit in the messiness of emotion, this is absolutely worth the read. It lingers—just like the best books do.

"No, I want to marry my regrets. To find a way to adore them for their sharp endless need."

This book is a brilliant coming-of-age novel about Mack Morris, entering her senior year of high school with the death of her father and a new teammate named Liv Cooper hanging over her head. Focused on nothing but greatness on the court, Mack is wracked with darkness off the court. Desperately trying to reconcile who she is outside of basketball in small-town Pennsylvania in 2004, Mack is forced to face what she is willing to do for the life she craves.

Written with so much depth and longing, this book will stick with me for a very long time.

Y’all… this book *wrecked* me. It’s raw, electric, and so painfully real that I kept catching my breath between chapters. Marisa Crane perfectly captures the high stakes of first love, grief, and ambition, all set against the sweaty, adrenaline-fueled backdrop of high school basketball.

Mack Morris is a character who *feels* her grief over her father’s death, her obsession with Liv, her hunger for something bigger than her small-town life. The way Crane writes their chemistry is *so* intense, both on and off the court. It’s messy, it’s beautiful, and it’s *so* 2004 (cue the nostalgia). Think *Love & Basketball* meets *Call Me by Your Name*, but with even sharper edges.

The way this book explores identity, queerness, and the suffocating expectations of small-town life? Absolutely gut-wrenching. And the writing? Lyrical, punchy, and impossible to put down. If you love stories about love that consumes, grief that lingers, and sports as both salvation and escape this one’s for you.

This was Stunning. Kinda like Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth mixed with Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas and the main character is Zendaya in Challengers except basketball and gay. This book tasted like sweat. It was so so good.

In A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane, Mack is aimlessly forging her way through her senior year of high school where basketball is her saving grace. The drinking and drugs are a mark for the grief and hidden sexual desires she has for a new teammate, Liv.

Positives: Setting a book in a competitive high school basketball team gives a glimpse into recruitment that students faced in the time the book takes place. I’m sure today’s recruiting world with NIL is much different. Today’s world would’ve done Mack’s family a lot more good for what they were going through.

Struggles: I will say that either I’m delusional on high school athletic drug use or there was a bit of overkill on how often and how hard of drugs were used by several characters in the book. Mack’s demons were numerous and overwhelming. She had a lot of burden she carried (and created) that would be difficult for a grown adult, much less a 17 year old.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the advanced copy. Opinions expressed are my own. This book will be published on May 12, 2025. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

#netgalley #arc #bookstagram #penguinrandomhouse #ASharpEndlessNeed #Marisa_Crane

<I>How was I expected to explain to this stranger that the more I desired, the more those desires emptied me? That if I could be anyone else, I would.</I>

4.5 / I don't know anything about basketball and I'm FAR from a sporty person but I absolutely loved Marisa Crane's first novel, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, so as soon as I found out they had a new book coming out I knew I had to read it, no matter what it was about. This beautifully written small-town coming-of-age story reminded me a lot of the first half of Emily M. Danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post, one of my favorite books, with the focus on characters and emotions and the fact that Liv reminded me a lot of Coley. Unfortunately this didn't quite resonate with me as much as Crane's first book did, but I think it would be even more moving than that to the right person. I also think reading this as an ebook kinda inhibited me from loving it as much as I could have BUT I still highly recommend.

thanks to netgalley, the dial press, and penguin for the arc!

Final Rating: 3/5 stars
My previous experience in regards to literature that focuses on queer female romance is almost non-existent, so I was really excited to read this arc. It did not disappoint! The language was beautiful and even though I know nothing about basketball, the terms used were not confusing and explained the perfect amount for many to understand. However, that was also a point that brought down my rating as I believe someone who has previous experience with the sport would have a lot more appreciation for what was discussed in the context of the book. The exploration of the self, sexuality and friendships was well developed and progressed through the story (which read very fast). I did not really agree with the ending and would have preferred to have something more concrete considering the nature of the story. Overall, the language was beautiful (even if at times I thought it was somewhat forced).

Rating: 4.5/5

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A thoughtful, unique story about struggling with love, grief, self-acceptance, and growing up.

I came into this with the very little basketball knowledge that comes with playing on middle school JV team. I've been a (casual) athlete for most of my life but have never been a particularly good or committed one. So, I couldn't exactly relate to Mack's love, and need for basketball. I can, however, relate to a young queer kid with an overly intimate friendship who is struggling to figure out who they are while simultaneously self sabotaging their life. And this book so perfectly encapsulated that experience.

The writing gave me such a seamless view into Mack's head and how she experienced the world. The lense of a talented and obsessive athlete was such an interesting way of exploring vice and pouring all of yourself into something external to avoid looking inward. The switch between active and passive voice (i.e. direct quotes from a character vs "she told me how") mimicked the act of storytelling so well it really felt like I was with Mack as she told me her story.

It is definitely a character driven book and I found it a bit slow at times, but the prose is beautiful and the story is heart wrenching in a wonderful way. Highly recommend this read.

A sharp endless need by Marisa Crane is a coming of age book about a relationship between two basketball teammates.

Mack Morris's senior year of high school begins with the death of her father. At the same time a new transfer kid came to the school, Liv Cooper.

Mack and Liv have amazing chemistry both on and off the court which does not go over well in their small Pennsylvania town.

If you're a fan of Call Me By Your Name and Love & Basketball then this is the book for you.

Thank you to Marisa Crane for partnering with NetGalley. I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

Publish date May 13 2025